Comments on: Spanish Is a Waste of Time

By: Miso

Miso — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 18:37:42 +0000

I think we can all agree on the premise that it is impossible to understand spoken Spanish between natives, if you are a foreigner.
That said, learning Spanish is a huge waste of time.
A trap of sunk cost fallacy.

By: E Esposito

E Esposito — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 09:30:25 +0000

In scientific fields I know about the papers are currently published in English. I have been to professional scientific conferences in the USA, Taiwan, China, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, Brazil, Spain, Singapore, and others I’ve forgotten, and every single one of them was in English. That said, with Trump slashing US science and China investing in science like the USA was in the cold war (for younger people, the dramatic demonstration of the A-bomb at Sputnik made the USA invest like gang-busters), I’m afraid the next language of Science might be Chinese. Currently, Chinese researchers publish their good stuff in English, but the Chinese government could change that in an instant if they wanted to.

I also took spanish (3 years in high school and a semester or two in college), and I have never used it at all. One problem is native speaks speak so fast I can’t understand them. I don’t think I ever could– My sister speaks English as fast as Spaniards speak Spanish, and I can’t understand her either.

That said, Spanish does have the advantage that there isn’t even a word for “spell” in Spanish, because everything is phonetic.

By: mioavim

mioavim — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 20:32:30 +0000

Spanish is the most boring class for me, I’m not saying that I hate it it’s just really really boring. After listening for my Spanish teacher talk about stuff and then understanding it, I have to do projects or assignments due almost the day after. I just don’t want to do it anymore because god it is boring, I lost all motivation I previously had for said subject year 8 is so boring

5 years ago, I am late

By: Not a yank

Not a yank — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 09:32:08 +0000

Mandarin language set back the Chinese economy? You must be a dumb yank, I bet lol…..

By: A very good listener

A very good listener — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:57:03 +0000

To those saying the author should learn Spanish to improve cognitive function is why she should take it, that is a moot point. The author studied computer science which demands knowledge of how to code in a ‘computer language’. So she already has similar cognitive benefits from that. The same cognitive benefits could be said of a monolingual musician but who can ‘read and write’ music. For ‘this’ author, the benefit of Spanish is not worth the cost and I think their point is made well. I say this as someone who was also forced to study a 2nd language in university (Japanese). I retained none of it because it was not useful to me.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 23:52:45 +0000

I empathize with you. Spanish is useless. I’m Brazilian and Spanish is unfortunately taught in some schools here as well, even though Brazil is massive just like the U.S. and we have less than 400 thousand Spanish speakers. That’s actually much less than 0.5% of our population. Literally everyone speaks Portuguese here.

By: Anonymous Kit

Anonymous Kit — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 13:57:26 +0000

Yeesh. That’s a hot take. I think I disagree with every point in this post.

By: None Ya Business

None Ya Business — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 14:13:34 +0000

Sounds like your ugly on the inside and out.

By: Max

Max — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 18:56:51 +0000

This article is basically a formal way of whining… you only speak one language in 2021? Just because you lack the ability of learning a new language, doesn’t mean that it’s “second-rate” or that it’s “a waste of time”. It has been proven that people who speak (at least) two languages, have better cognitive skills. In fact, studies have shown that bilingual kids outperform their monolingual peers because their brains processes information in both English and Spanish (supposing those are the languages they know). They can basically process information using two filters, they’re not limited to just one. There are many other benefits, do some research.

By: Kay

Kay — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 17:43:33 +0000

In reply to Kay.

Some articles that I recommend are cited below. These articles primarily cover cognitive benefits (such as delaying onset of dementia) of learning foreign languages, and the evidence that studying a foreign language improves your performance in English, math, science, and on standardized test scores (such as the SAT and ACT).

Also, I want to clarify that I greatly respect your blog; I just happen to disagree with some of what you’ve said here. Hopefully a bit of friendly disagreement is healthy.

Additionally, below is a quote from cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham, found in his book “Why don’t students like school?” It addresses what I said in my previous comment about how knowing more helps you learn more. This alone is a reasonable argument in favor of taking general education classes:
“This final effect of background knowledge — that having factual knowledge in long-term memory makes it easier to acquire still more factual knowledge — is worth contemplating for a moment. It means that the amount of information you retain depends on what you already have. So, if you have more than I do, you retain more than I do, which means you gain more than me. To make the idea concrete…suppose you have ten thousand facts in your memory, but I have only nine thousand. Let’s say we each remember a percentage of new stuff, and that percentage is based on what’s already in our memories. You remember 10 percent of the new facts your hear, but because I have less knowledge in long-term memory, I remember only 9 percent of new facts. Table 1 shows how many facts each of us has in long-term memory over the course of ten months, assuming we’re each exposed to five hundred new facts each month. By the end of ten months, the gap between us has widened from 1,000 facts to 1,043 facts. Because people who have more in long-term memory learn more easily, the gap is only going to get wider.”

Marian, V., and Shook, A. (2012). The cognitive benefits of being bilingual. Cerebrum, 13.

Keysar, B., Hayakawa, S., Gyu An, S. (2012). The foreign-language effect: Thinking in a foreign tongue reduces decision biases. Psychological Science, 23(6).

Armstrong, P. W., & Rogers, J. D. (1997). Basic skills revisited: The effects of foreign language instruction on reading, math, and language arts. Learning Languages, 2(3), 20-31.

Carr, C.G. (1994). The effect of middle school foreign language study on verbal achievement as
measured by three subtests of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills

D’Angiulli, A., Siegel, L. S., & Serra, E. (2001). The development of reading in English and Italian in bilingual children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22(4),

District of Columbia Public Schools, Washington, D.C. (1971). A study of the effect of Latin instruction on English reading skills of sixth grade students in the public schools of the district of Columbia, school year, 1970-71.

Cunningham, T. H., & Graham, C. R. (2000). Increasing native English vocabulary recognition through Spanish immersion: Cognate transfer from foreign to first language. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(1).

Kessler, C., & Quinn, M. E. (1980). Positive effects of bilingualism on Science problem-solving abilities. In J. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown Universityround table on languages and linguistics (pp. 295-308). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Cooper, T. C. (1987). Foreign language study and SAT verbal scores. Modern Language Journal, 71(4), 381-387.

Olsen, S.A., Brown, L.K. (1992). The relation between high school study of foreign languages and ACT English and mathematics performance. ADFL Bulletin, 23(3).

Wiley, P. D. (1985). High school foreign language study and college academic performance.
Classical Outlook, 62(2).